Disclaimer: I own the idea of the Beast, but his real identity is the property of his creator, as are the League. On the subject, think of the Beast looking like Gary Oldman when he's in human form. (AN: Thanks to Clez for suggesting him, by the way)

Feedback: In a nutshell... GIMME GIMME GIMME!

Sean Molloy-1: All of them. It will take a while to work on, given that I've got some other League members I'd like to introduce, but once I'm done, the League shall meet the heroes from Marvel and DC Comics, and battle a foe like nothing they have faced before...

LotRseer3350: Oh, you'll have to wait and see. All I can say is, check out 'Spirit Walk' for a slight clue...

Clez: Here it is, hope you like it.

Legacy

Shit, James thought to himself, as he walked out of the club. Looking down at his hand, he stared idly at his few remaining pieces of money; a couple of notes, a few shillings, and various assorted small change.

And to think, only a few hours before, he'd had nearly a hundred pounds on him. He'd been on top of the world, following his having played the best game of poker he'd ever played in his life, and he'd been heading home with a song in his heart and on his lips.

And then he'd noticed the second club. It was a bit seedier than the sort of places he normally frequented (He may not have been as rich as some people, but he still had some standards), but he'd been feeling lucky, and decided to try and see if could he double his money before nightfall. Besides, if things turned nasty, he still had the pistol he'd once bought. At the very least, it should intimidate people long enough for him to get out.

Unfortunately, his luck hadn't lasted longer than his first game in that club. He'd won an extra twenty pounds but, unable to quit while he was ahead, he'd kept on playing, even when he began to get bad hands. Eventually, just as he thought he had a definite win (Four aces), his opponent had played a straight flush, and he'd lost it all.

Right now, as he stared down at his few remaining coins, he couldn't decide whether or not to use his pistol and take, as so many people called it, the gentlemen's way out, or hang on to hope and just try to muddle along with what little money he had.

However, before he could decide, he heard a low growl come from an alleyway to his left.

Glancing in that direction, James raised a curious eyebrow as he pulled out his revolver. He wouldn't call himself a courageous man, more of an inquisitive one, but he didn't think there was much here to be afraid of. The growl was probably just a dog or some other such thing; easy enough to deal with, if the need arose.

After all, no matter how dangerous, a dog could never be a match for a human, especially one armed with a gun.

Walking towards the alley, James quickly checked his pistol for bullets, Finding that he had indeed remembered to load the gun before coming out, he aimed it ahead of him and walked forward.

"Hello?" he called out, feeling stupid for doing it even as he spoke. After all, what good would calling it do?

Then again, on reflection, there was something about that growl that hadn't seemed quite like a dog's growl.

Almost like it was a human doing the growling...

Suddenly, he heard something off to one side of him. It sounded like something had just fallen into a puddle of some kind, but the sound wasn't quite right. If he hadn't known it was impossible, he would have thought that it sounded like something was being thrown out of the water, rather than being thrown in.

Starting to get scared now, James scanned the alleyway, trying to spot something that could have made that noise.

"Who's there?" he asked, trying to sound braver than he felt.

"Me," someone said, in a cold, harsh voice that sounded like the speaker was talking from the bottom of a deep pool. Spinning around to face the voice, James saw something standing at the end of the alleyway, although the shadows were so thick it was hard to see what it was. "And I have a message I want you to deliver."

"Which is?" James asked, fingering his pistol as he held up in front of him.

Chuckling slightly, the creature walked forward, stepping out of the shadows.

James almost screamed at what he saw in front of him. It was huge, almost eight or nine feet tall, and covered in green scales all over the top part of its body, which was only covered by a few small shreds of clothing that seemed to be from a ripped shirt. It had a pair of trousers on, but those were its only clothes; even its shoes appeared to have been shredded, exposing long toenails. Its hands had similar nails, and its arms were nearly as thick as some of the trees James had seen.

But it was the creature's head that really terrified James. The ears were long and pointed, and the forehead had around eight large horns sticking out of it. There were also several smaller horns around the creature's chin, in a manner that almost looked like the horns were the creature's beard. Its eyes were blood red, and its teeth were sharp and pointed, like an animal's.

It grinned at James, its eyes sparkling with an almost pure evil.

"To thank Professor Moriarty for his research," the creature replied. "I believe you'll find him in your next destination." The creature crouched down, and two large, bat-like wings sprouted from its back. "The afterlife."

That was enough.

Terrified, James fired the pistol at the creature wildly, launching off three bullets at it in rapid succession. Each one struck the creature's skin, but James couldn't even say if it even bruised this thing, whatever it was.

Looking down at where the bullets had stuck its hide, the creature smiled a little as it looked up at James.

"Nice try," it said, in a low voice that seemed absolutely covered with malice. "But not good enough."

The creature crouched down on the ground, tensed its legs, and leapt towards James.

Terrified, James dropped his gun, turned, and began to run. However, he'd barely advanced one step before he felt something dig into his back, and thought he heard something be torn out. He tried to keep running, but for some reason, nothing was working anywhere. He couldn't move his legs, his arms were immobile, he couldn't even breathe...

As he fell to the ground, he didn't even have time to be grateful that his earlier decision had been taken out of his hands for him.

He didn't even have time to wonder what had happened to him. However, as his eyes started to dim over, he saw something white lying in front of him.

The white thing was his own spine.

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